theroadreturnsfandomcom-20200214-history
Ch. 7: The Shadow on the Stars
Back to Arheled ' ' ' ' Forest took another step. The bloody grove was gone. Instead he was following a glowing woman down a hall of still fire; what seemed like frozen flames of blue and white decorated the walls and played over the ceiling, and bronze and red fires carpeted the floor. Lambent, burning nothing, the motionless tongues curled, wispy and brilliant at once, the blue fires tipped with turquoise green, the white ones with darker yellow; the flattened, horizontal flames of the carpet were in fact fabric, some enchanted fabric of woven fires held still and perishless, and wound in among them were patterns and webs of darker fire. The woman glided in at a door, looking around to see if she was followed. The door, made not of crystal but of a satin-polished white wood, closed, then faded transparent as Forest’s sight walked through it. “They are coming for her.” Sophia whispered to another Starmaiden. The two wore clothes of a simpler fashion than that which the Star-lords had worn; dresses with spiderweb-like embroidering, silver upon blue, a deep maroon mantle over it all. The dresses were identical; clearly it was a uniform. The two glowing figures, one with flesh of silver and one greenish-pink, huddled on the bed. “Will they come for you, too?” the other said agitatedly. “If they do, I can fight them.” Sophia hissed. “I have bathed in the flask.” “You have one also?” the other Star said, timidly. The bed was grand and majestic, golden wood wrought with gold winding all through it so that the very grain seemed of golden thread, and canopies of beaded and woven light hung filmy around it, shedding an unwet dew of light like faintly luminous pearls down upon the violet and gold-broidered covers. Lace-edged pillows of deep red were stacked high at one end. The drops caused a strange ripple in the covers when they fell, but otherwise left no dampness nor trace of their fall. When the drops struck the two Stars, a brighter spot showed amid their glow before muting, but the girls paid it no heed. “Be not absurd. I suspect everyone does. It grows harder a thing to keep dim. But I would only fight if they cornered me. And I am but her maid.” said Sophia. “Is it true the Lord Arcturus himself will bring the charges? I thought he was in love with Charosa.” “Oh, once, perhaps.” said Sophia loftily. “But that is ages behind him. How could anyone be so murky as to open unto a Giant? Ever since we were made the Unbegotten have tried to snare us.” “She would open to anyone.” “Well, this was the final straw. Angar the Dark, they say, is trying to have the Twins exiled—or executed.” “Was Diana really with son by him?” “She ferociously denies it, which only convinces everyone the more. None like her. How dare she set herself up so lofty and pure, when polluted is her very blood!” Sophia said spitefully. The walls flickered, as the frozen flames began to move and shift dreamily along them, while the two maidens whispered underneath; and great candles flared into life around the walls, as the fires dimmed and went dull. The two maidens sat up, alarm in their faces. Sophia shot like a beam of light to the door and elongated her eye through the keyhole, peering into the hall. She remained thus for long minutes, as deep and solemn voices sang in a wordless dirge, the slow chant of the stars. “They are here.” she whispered. Walls sped and flashed past Forest. He saw for a moment vast toppling structures of hard light, a city of them, a city on air, bright as a cloud. Then he stood in a high-vaulted chamber. The columns were of glass shaped by some strange art into lifelike and detailed figures of people, nymphs and dryads weaving in and out from one another, as if growing out of each other like glass trees: and they were naked, or clad only in filmy drapes, and their graceful figures were so lovely Forest scarcely realized their nudity. The glass glimmered in slowly shifting hues far down within, rose and ruddy violet and mauve and lilac, and rich violet. The walls shimmered and flickered as if heatless fires burned in ascending courses within their substance, fires of pearl and softest shell-like pink, and patterns of woven light played slowly across the gleaming surface. Upon the floors lay carpets of light, patterned in rigid and somehow sombre designs of red and yellow, and woven black. And the chamber was filling up with Stars. Still in they poured, till they stood upon the air in rank upon rank and concealed the walls, and the lofty vaults of sombre purple picked out with red were hidden by upside-down Stars. A red flame burned in the center, red with her indignation: Charosa. Gold hair flashed and glowed about her scarlet face. Her breasts and behind were not half so exaggerated as when Forest had first seen her, for today she was on trial. Robes as wispy as cloud drifted about her. Behind her stood Arcturus, and two lendar on either side, in case of escape. Seated upon chairs of wrought crystal that burned with bound sunlight, the pearl-gleaming figure of Silmo, Lord of the Moon, King of the Stars, and the fiery-haired figure of Urwendi the Lady of the Sun, gazed down upon their daughter and said nothing. “What Arcturus claims is not true!” Charosa was saying passionately. “I bare my mind and memory to you, my sires. See you there the imprint of them, foes immortal, old, unbegotten, out of void ancient? Do you desire oaths?” “Oaths have been sworn as in all inquiries, and those are enough.” Silmo made answer. “I have heard your account. I have heard that of our son Angar. Hear now then my doom. I speak it in the light the Valar gave me when they sent me to shine among you. I speak it by my noble spirit, which sees farther than any '' venda''. “Charosa bore a twin, who bear in them the blood of our foes the Frost-giants. But in Charosa’s mind is no knowledge of such a deed as Angar alleges, nor does she lie. It is plain then that the giant who begot upon her the perilous twins, came to her hidden and in guise of Star. They cannot ascend into the airs. They must have had aid. This must be illumined. “Charosa is guiltless of treason, guilty of lust. Her lust betrayed her. She laid herself open to all who came near, caring nor knowing whom they might be. For this I punish you, by remanding you, my daughter, to one year alone in deepest dungeon. This I rule. “Silmo wills it! Silmo dooms it!” When all had gone, Urwendi stayed Arcturus. “Silmo,” said she, “and my lord Arcturus, let us step aboard the Moon. I have words to say in this matter.” Forest followed them as they sped like meteors through the wheeling airs. Stars floated in their places, encased in a globe of their own light, a fierce silver and white and blue. Deep, utter blue was the thin air of Ilmen around them, clear and pure. Ahead a great tilting wheel of pure silver swooped and whirled into view, and when at last the streaks of light he was following stopped wheeling and flew straight, Forest saw before him a mighty vessel, broad as two houses, long as an airplane, its’ hull a delicate pure crystal glass of virin itself, and it shone with a powerful silver light. Moving slower now the three Lights of the Heavens soared over the transparent rim and alighted on an island on the ship of the Moon. The queer haunting chill song of the Choir echoed in the air, death for ears not undefended. The Moon was so beautiful it made tears flow unheeded down Forest’s cheeks. An unutterable sorrow filled him at the sight of what had once been, and was now gone. Lakes of liquid light condensed like dew or thin and stickless honey lay around him, deep and brilliant; and pathways and aisles wound among them, and snowy gleaming blossoms crusted the brims of those pools. Amid the middle rose a tiered fount of that strange unbrittle glass, thin as a petal or as a bubble-skin, and from this came the mightiest glow of all, and there reposed an undying Blossom. Forest could not look away. Through the glass and powerful white glow he saw a flower like a rose with the stem of a lily, longer and trumpetine, but unfolding out into ten thousand snowlike petals, and its’ heart was of white flame, and it gave a throbbing pulse, growing slowly to a greatness of light and then fading. It was of great size, “large as a car” thought Forest, and a dew of glowing honey distilled upon each petal and fell therefrom, and it swam upon its’ own light, and a marvellous thin fragrance arose from it. Despite himself the Road dragged him around, and he followed in the wake of the Lights as they trod the airy paths. Masts there were like pale rods of ice, and the strangest wispy lights furled and flowed around the spars like gossamer sails, and then Forest saw they were not sails but spirits of silver and pale gold, the mariners of Silmo, the Wings of the Moon. In the prow of the Moon rose a fine pearly tower of light made tangible, and entering the slender door they sat down on chairs of glass in a high narrow room. “Hear me, my lords.” said Urwendi. Her scorching voice was stilled, and she had muted as well her fiery gold hair in a veil of silver that dimmed her burning glance. “My son Angar lied to us. Under the most dreadful oaths, he lied when he described how Charosa met the giant. Do you remember when the Twins were born? Even then he knew.” “The Jotunn cannot tread the airs without aid.” put in Silmo. “Even those whom the Lord of Winter and Frost himself subdued to serve the Seasons, can only tread the clouds of the Storehouses of the Snow. And even they look forward as they serve to the time when they will break free.” “It is said some of them can change their shape.” offered Arcturus. “Fafnir became a dragon, and Otr an otter. But to impersonate a Star…ah, that is fell magic indeed.” “None of the Unbegotten have such power.” agreed Urwendi. “That is beyond, I think, even the might of a Star, to counterfeit another Star.” “When a lend enters a lenna,” said Silmo, “it is not the static process that it is between solid beings, such as men, or elves, or even giants. They change their shape constantly in their delight, their forms no more static than flame. Only a male Star could remain joined to her under such conditions. To so alter not only the form but the very properties of a solid being’s body, would seem to me beyond any piercer’s skill.” “This is known very well to us, my lord Silmo,” Arcturus said in a puzzled voice. “”We sense the Road is walking time again,” Urwendi said serenely, “layers of walking, and layers of hearing. My lord is right. It would need something more than any Star has. It would need, bluntly, valla.” “Or vallfarnda, as the Warden puts it.” concurred Silmo. “An order of power acting from above the natural order—and yes, you Stars, like all venda, are still just barely in the natural order. But we—we act from above it.” “It seems to me, then,” said Urwendi, “that we have among us one of the Great Evils; one not merely Maia, but Vala. Not even Manwë, I think, kenneth the number of our fallen brothers from the great ranks who have slipped into Arda in one form or another. Some never joined the ranks of Melkor. They, like Ungoiliantë, acted on their own.” “But were not they all cast into the Void when Angband broke?” Arcturus said. The two incarnate angels gazed at him sadly. “Many Dragons escaped that were small enough to hide under the hills; even one of the Balrogs got away.” Silmo said sadly. “But we have news, I see, that thou hast not. Our brother at the Gates of Night tells us—that they were opened.” “My piercers did reach it, then!” “And cast down its’ guardian, and opened the door. Something came through it. Too late the Doors were slammed. I deem that what came through it—sits within Angar.” Arcturus rose to his feet. “This was for what I have long been preparing. I have found the counter to our curse, and I am freed of it. Or so I deem. I will assail Angar, my Lord and Lady. Let me do so first. If I am overcome by curse, then will you know I was on the wrong tack. But if I survive—then with all speed, my Lord and Lady, drink the potation I will give to ye.” “This counsel seems good to me.” said Urwendi. “Come. Let us seize and free our dark son.” '' '' The laboratory of Arcturus was not floored with transparent sky as Lara had described it: now it bore a floor, if one could call it that, of rank on rank of stored vertical objects, floating on nothingness, concealed by some spell of power. The walls of meshed crystal vines like trellises of woven glass were hidden by the apparatus of silver wire and filaments and cords and threads of webbed and bedewed light that hung on the air, packed close, hanging from the ceiling. The lab had undergone changes since Lara had seen it. Although the resemblance to the lab of Angar was considerable in as much as they shared many of the same queer devices and peculiar inventions and equipment, still there was a noticeable difference as well, for it was assembled by a different man. There was a care of detail about it which the equally complex lab of Angar had lacked; a beauty and purpose in even the vats and beakers, which belongs to one who makes things for the love of making, and not solely for practical reasons. Angar seemed to have only been concerned with whether it worked. Arcturus strode with grim purpose down the many avenues of instruments until he came to the back wall. The window there gave out only upon the starry sky, but when he shed a swirling beam from his shoulder over it, it became a door. Out of his pocket he drew an oddly familiar key, a brilliant fiery golden-copper in hue, with a cloverleaf head bordered by a band of raised beads and inside these two curling shapes like flame, or like featureless and fearsome dragons. Between them was graven an ornate numeral rune that Forest somehow knew said 9. With this he unlocked the door, revealing on the far side a great dark hall stretching away. “You have breached the nine layers of place!” the Sun exclaimed. “None save the unclad spirits can walk them, we deemed.” “I breached these long before, when the Ice had not yet consumed the Silent Country where we danced, and my nine-and-forty sons and I constructed roads to link one layer to another, and lead up even onto the rooftops of Time.” said Arcturus. “But my sons are dark now. Time took them. Time chained them, between one moment and the next. This key can only visit them. It needs the Road to free them. And Arheled has refused.” “I am sorry.” said Silmo gently. “As yet,” said Arcturus, lighting the mysterious hall with his own form as he paced down it, “I alone possess the secret. Or so I hope. But if Angar truly is possessed, he may know as well, for it was he after all who first set me on the way to knowledge. Here, my Lord and Lady, keep I my weapons.” Such a weird arsenal Forest had never imagined. The variety and design of the things stored there were staggering. A few familiar shapes stood out from the mob: bows with C-horns absurdly bent and stringed like harps, fitted with darts so queer and twisted no archer could possibly shoot them; axes and maces and war-hammers of convoluted form, wrought in awful runes and carvings, with odd distorted blades and silver strings strung incongruously along them; great swords with ridiculous complicated baskets of wire for hilts; shields with curling spikes and bosses that seemed queerly unsolid. Besides these were objects that looked like sewing machines or car engines that had gone through a volcano and come out half-melted and twisted out of shape, or queer assembled disks and balls of elaborate pattern that seemed only designed to slide around each other; and countless distorted, beautiful and deadly shapes, each evidently a device of power. “These are fell indeed.” said Silmo in a hushed voice. “I comprehend their purpose and power in a single glance. Some of these attack the property of a body. Others attack various accidents. But these, here, these disrupt the very form and substance.” “They can even injure an intellectual substance.” said Arcturus grimly. “I kept no record of how I forged them, and pushed from my mind the knowledge. But they are here. Even Melkor himself might flinch before these.” Slowly Silmo lifted one of the devices in question. A bizarre basket of golden wire elongated toward a funnel-like mouth; but inside it was darkness, where should be emptiness. Queer dark crystals gleamed in the openings. “I see now.” he murmered. “Foolish Arcturus. You would power this device by the harvested essence of Chaos himself, that infects all matter beyond the Holy Realm. But what if we were to face that very being? You cannot harm him with himself.” “I will take one, nevertheless.” Arcturus answered. “Though I will not depend upon it. Choose what you will, my Lord and Lady; all that I have, it is yours.” The halls of Angar stood apart from the other halls of the Alaplondo, the Planets, those eight mighty princes of the Stars. They had originally been constructed on more sombre lines; the crystalline substance of forged and fused light which made them (as opposed to pure crystal in the houses of less wealth) was a deep purple-red, fading into black in the corners and the hollows of the carvings. Gold shone here or there, and silver glimmered in places. The lines of the architecture were harsher and more severe, less ornamental and soaring, than the palaces Forest had previously seen; arches rose to stern points, and ornament was reduced to a single row of fluted shapes along the edges of the frames. Severe groins rose in simple sweeps to uphold the vaults of the entrance porches; their dark purple-blue cast a gloom upon the unlit portico. They were falling into disrepair; parts of the walls were cracked and eroded with evaporation, and some of the hard-light mouldings looked like they were melting. Beneath the city Forest did not see a broad circle of curving land, as he expected; but of curving clouds like turbulent towers, ugly and thick. Lightning sprang upward, forking like tree limbs before fading out, and the continuous snarl of far thunder drifted up from below. The Sun and Moon alighted on the portico. They wore the strangest armour any Star had ever seen, and in their hands were the weapons of Arcturus. He too was dighted for war, dozens of his bizarre and deadly inventions hanging about him. He smote open the grim doors, wrought not of hard light but of metal, and Forest’s sight followed in after him. He stood in a single massive hall. The hard light was not present. These walls were dead black. They were forged of wrought darkness. Woven shadows carpeted the floor. It was lit only by the blood-red light of the eyes of Angar, piercing as the Sun but far more withering. The Dark Star stood at the far end, tall and silent. Robes of darkness flowed about him like choking smoke. “Angar!” the voice of Arcturus thundered. “I have come in the name of the Sun and the Moon, to bind and to seize thee, that the evil within thee may be exorcised. Submit!” “Submit.” the low mocking voice of the Dark Planet rolled in the black hall. “You come to me, you, a mere venda of the people of the Stars, and seek to overcome me?” Arcturus glowed. Rainbow fires of every hue leaped inside his weapons as they awoke. “You gave me knowledge. For that I thank you, for it gives me the power to overcome you.” Hall and chamber shook and wavered. The air around him dimmed and flickered, queer hues boiling out in loops and bends. Angar’s form shivered and wobbled. Suddenly the arcing distortions warped back into their weapons. Arcturus staggered from the recoil. Angar stood unharmed. “A little harder, Arcturoha.” sneered Angar. “By the Gods, one would think thou wert assaulting a fly. Even a son of the Maiar would laugh at these elemental distortions.” “No Maia will laugh at these, I assure you.” said Arcturus as the spokes of his armour bent and glowed. Warps of power bent inward from all sides, till Angar was almost hidden by the wavering distortions. The wrinkles in the air slowed: Angar was holding them off. Suddenly Arcturus appeared behind him and unleashed a stream of fiery black. Angar shattered. His form splattered upon the air, into mist, and then into gas: Arcturus had stricken him with the essence of the curse upon the Stars. Slowly and victoriously Arcturus strode back up the hall. Behind him mist and gas rushed back together. Energy hardened. Angar appeared, whole, undamaged. Arcturus whirled as Angar blazed. A bulging cloud of meeting power erupted between them. Energy began to snap and spark like lightning. “You may be a son of spirits,” Arcturus said, “but I am of the first magnitude!” From his shoulder rose the sinister device of golden wires, the darkness within them rotating and throwing out flares of red and evil green. Full upon Angar it blasted. Air and light and space imploded around the ray that it sent forth. It expired on Angar’s hand. He began to laugh. Mirthless, heartless, cold as death, cruel as stone and harsh as knives, the sound sliced into Forest’s ears and mind and soul. Even protected by the Road he reeled. For Arcturus, with nothing to aid him but his celestial nature, it was far worse. His form blew, wavering as if before a wind of power, streamers of glaring white breaking out of him. '' “I cannot be injured by my own essence!” the grating voice of Chaos himself broke out of Angar’s mouth. In rushed the Sun and Moon. From their hands they cast down empty flasks. In their eyes a mighty light was blazing. The eyes of Arien fried the very air they stared through. Softer but no less powerful was the light of Silmo. Chaos looked at them from the eyes of Angar. Then, quite suddenly, he was not there. “Arcturus!” cried Silmo, helping him coalesce. “Art thou wounded?” “Never,” groaned the Star, “will that voice leave my head. Melkor walks among the Stars. We must arm for war.” “What is the hurry, Sophia?” cried the starmaid Forest had seen with her before. The two were racing down a corridor, each laden with what seemed to be ceremonial paraphernalia, which they kept hovering before them on a net of energy. “Gods! Whatever we say of Charosa she was never this demanding!” “The lord Üra wants his full regalia ''and retinue to accompany him to the Sun. Urwendi has commanded all the Eight for a council of war.” “Perhaps they have enlightened the giant!” “Or whomso aided him.” said Sophia. “I hope he makes not me to dress him. As yet I have not drawn his eye.” “You are lucky.” the other snorted. “To be shone on by him is like being stabbed with icicles.” The halls they were racing down were high and awful, like vaults of hewn ice; the crystal gleamed pale blue in the vaults, and harsher noon blue in the ribs, and knobs of pure blue indigo joined them. Blues in many kinds played in the frozen walls, and hoarfrost wrought into elaborate unmelting forms served as carving for the frames. Icicles hung ornamentally from every surface, some curling back on themselves. Dews of coldness condensed into such severity it shone of itself served as light within the walls, and rosy shimmers hung, frozen, within the chilled blue, picking it out. They arrived breathlessly in the rooms of the Lord Üra and bowed to the floor, levitating the burdens. “We come, Lord.” quavered Sophia. “Maricrondo, dress me.” the deep, utterly cold voice of Üra echoed from the dim room. “Sophia, garb thee as befits a lady: thou wilt be among my retinue.” He was long and craglike, preferring a form that looked cut from frozen rock. Naked as he was now, he seemed like some lonely pinnacle on a mountain of ice in a cold moon; a cold blue fire burned on his hearth, and the rooms, besides being hued like ice, were almost cold enough for air to condense. Black walls with heights of cold blue in the carvings and the ridges of the sharp arches rose to sharp dark vaults, fading to indigo and ice-blue. All his maids feared him. Soon she and the retinue of Üra, all in gleaming shades of blue and grey, were streaking through the heavens in pursuit of the Sun on the far side of Arda. Yet however far west they sped, not even over the sea could they escape the ponderous towers of roiling cloud. Lit by the lights and by their own lightnings, they shone soft rose and strange lilac and sombre violet, and many hues of grey and blue; but underneath were a grim dirty brown, as if wrought not of vapor but of smoke. A mighty glare came from ahead. Shielded by the Road, Forest’s eyes were not overborne, now were those of the Stars, and though the heat of Anar’s rays made their forms steam, great heat is as much their home as great cold, and no Star showed pain. The sky around them was aflame. Even the air was close to combustion. White and golden fire filled the world. Then they reached the heart of it, and Forest saw the ancient Sun. Where the Moon had been a tranquil place of repose and delicacy and clearness of sight and thought like glass, the Sun was a place of fury, of exultant, fiery beauty, fierce and joyous and violent. Broad of beam and ship-fashioned, she was yet smaller than the vessel of the Moon, and her hull was of some fiery clear substance, lucent as a glass transfused in nature so as to be half of gold. Gold that did not melt was laid for rim and rail, and gold were the masts, and upon the spars stood motionless maidens lucent of flesh, and light flashed from their glorious limbs that no raiment could abide upon. All that ship was filled with fire; liquid light of purest burning gold flashed and seethed in waves of golden foam like maple sugar that is boiling over, and in the midst lay a fruit so huge as to dwarf even the mighty Rose. Pips like shining gold burned with juices like quivering flames of amber and red, like a jar of maple syrup held up to the sun. It had no rind, for Aulë had used it to forge that lucent hull, yet it died not, and shed dews of fire from its’ gleaming pips. Upon a deck of wrought gold laced with petals of yellow and orange like new coals taken from a hearth, Urwendi stood, and there alighted the Stars, the seven Planets and their assembled retinue; yet strange to relate that deck contained them all. “My lords my children, I welcome you to the Sun.” said Urwendi. “I see Hormo, and Barvast, Drëdo and Gentos, Üra and Doldûn and Lundno the silent. Why are there here only Seven of the Eight?” The Planets looked one at the other. Barvast shrugged. Gentos frowned. Doldûn looked utterly unmoved. “I will tell you why my son Angar is not here.” said Urwendi. “My lord Arcturus, step forward.” Arcturus wobbled faintly as he did so. Forest heard startled murmers among the Stars: usually no injury is permanent to a shapemelding being, unless his power, or his spirit, is wounded. Deep weariness and pain etched his face. Sophia made a startled sound, but stayed where she was. In sonorous tones Arcturus told of the evil long growing in the stars, of the Shadow on the Choir, of the madness of immorality and even perversion that raged among the host of Heaven. “Now daughters are beginning, wearied of experiencing only other lendar, to soften their walls to be shone on by their fathers, and brothers shine on sisters, and sisters please to mothers. '' Lendar'' are even beginning to lust after lendar, and lennaí after lennaí. In the midst of this, some unknown power enables a Giant to impersonate a Star.” They all knew what he was talking about. “An evil walks among us. I have looked into its’ eyes. I bear the scar of its’ laughter in my limping. It has entered into the body of Angar our brother.” Vividly he described the duel, the portentuous unnatural power of Angar, and his terrible words. The Sun and Moon concurred in his statement. “But where could he be?” cried Barvast. “He must have taken refuge with one of you!” accused Hormo. “Are you saying I’d harbor him, wingfoot?” Barvast threatened. Bedlam erupted. Hormo and Barvast were shouting. Doldûn was accusing Drëdo of harboring Angar. Drëdo, the eldest and leader, was trying to shout some sense into everyone else. Üra was sneering. Gentos was saying something and saying it ever louder. Even silent Lundno looked roused. Forest’s flesh grew chilled, as if eyes of unutterable cold rested on him. He turned around. Angar invisible stood nearby, laughing to himself, his freezing eyes burning into Forest. He knew Forest was there. Suddenly the scene vanished as the Road whisked Forest away, even as the awful hand of Chaos reached out for him. Whirling scenes shot by him with each step of his foot. One seemed to be a sky filled with large brilliant ''flashing '' stars, and instead of the eerie heartrending starstriking singing, all he heard was a static of shouting voices: every star seemed to be berating every other star. Shouts of “Giant!” mingled with shouts of “Angarist!” Beating weirdness of rayed light sparkled in every direction from everyone; it was like a forest of fireworks that hang in place and do not spread. These faded behind him, and he saw marching up the sky seven great companies of silent gleaming soldiers, and each as it passed threw open a door in the air, revealing huge factories of weapons. The doors opened with a wrenching groan like the splitting of the worlds, and at each opening the sky quivered. The weapons within gleamed chill and dreadful, intricate as a frost-laden tangle of undergrowth. A few looked similar to the ones Arcturus made, but by and large the designs were so disparate it was obvious each hoard had been developed independently. He saw flashes of Stars donning weapons, noting the different styles and colors of each—red, blue, violet, grey and green, ochre and silver. Suddenly he stood on a ruined tower of hard light, recently broken, for light was still evaporating from the edges of the rents in pale gleaming curls of mist. Luminous jags and sharp spires of broken fragments jutted pale yellow against the deep dark blue of the cerulean vault. In a corner crouched the Twins, pale, battered, their forms looking ready to collapse. As if they had just suffered defeat. They had. Towering above them stood Angar the Dark, his eyes red and burning with a queer light, and his form was so huge Forest wondered how the other Stars did not see it, until he realised Angar was only visible to the Twins. “You are mighty among the Stars, but you are nothing beside me.” the deep grinding voice of the Lord of Chaos mocked. “In thy condition I could kill thee, but see, I let thee live.” He waved his hand and the waveriness of their forms stiffened, and color returned to their faces. “For I am the Lord of Life and of Death.” “Why did you seek us out?” gasped Apollo. “I have shaped thee and guided thee thy whole entire lives. It was by my power that thy father came to thy mother. I begot thee. I have fashioned thee all these years, for just such an hour.” “You got me with child!” Diana accused fiercely; but her voice lacked heart. “You destroyed my virginity! You betrayed me!” Artollo said nothing. “I made thee big that thou might be strong, Diana.” laughed Angar. “I made thee big so that thou might sacrifice thy own son, and thy abortion make thee grow strong. Thou art children of Giant and of Star, descended from spirits: thou art stronger than any being that walks in the heavens.” The Twins said nothing, staring at him with large eyes. “Thou should not fear nor venerate the Gods, those wizened beings stooped with years. Thou should not worship the strength of thy sires; for thy sires are weak, and soon to be brought low. There is no real war between me and thee. Thou hated me only from resentment. But I can give power to thee, my dear niece and nephew. The power of the Sun and Moon themselves.” He held out two quivers. Wrought of black metal bands intricately curling among leather strips, the quivers had a high cruel look to them. Out of them rose arrows, tightly bunched, hundreds of them; but arrows more weird and dreadful of shape than anything Forest had ever seen. Their subtle heads had fluted curling edges that seemed to fade into nothingness, so it was hard to say where edge stopped and sky began. Shaft and bark and feather glowered with a dark red light, though their substance was black: the glow of power. “Do as I shall command thee, and when I say to act, and when battle is hottest thou shalt overcome with these thy feeble grandsires the Sun and Moon. For I powered them with myself, which I had diffused into matter.” Slowly their hands reached out to take the quivers. Another voice broke in on Forest’s ears. He saw at once that he was in a dungeon beneath the earth, for earth made its’ walls; and sitting in the mud of the dark floor was a girl in rags. Her face was grimed and filthy, but despite this it was clear she was extraordinarily beautiful. Her eyes had a dull glaze. She sat perfectly still, now and then shapeshifting hand or foot and watching absently the changing forms, until she relaxed it and let herself go limp again. With a thud two men appeared in the cell. One was tall and stringy, with hair like red fire; the other was a Star in strange robes, shining a faint and eerie purple-blue: Polaris, King of the Northern Hemisphere, second in power only to the Planets themselves. “She is far gone, Polaris.” the red one said. At the voice Forest gave a violent start: for he knew it. “Why did you call me up, merely to visit her?” “The dungeon is protected by the vallfarnda of the Sun and Moon themselves.” said Polaris. “But thou art Carn’hell’nar. Surely the Father of Dragons can overcome it.” “Surely you did not call me out of the constellations merely to pull her out and wash her bottom clean, for an hour of pleasure?” the Father of Dragons said darkly. “Thou sayest rightly. Nay, I desire both thy help and hers on an enterprise I have long held in mind, but which in the current chaos is suddenly much more attainable. The Evening Star.” “The Mariner.” Carn’hell’nar said thoughtfully. “You wish to go up against the Silmaril? How do you think I can overcome it, when not even Ancalagon my mightiest stood out against it?” “Thou forget that he has a curse on him also, the Mariner: he is never to touch earth, whether the waters of the seas or the soil of the ground; nor mingle in the affairs of men. We need not overcome him. All we need to do is make him touch the ground.” “She is of little use in such a venture.” “Thou art the Father of Dragons. Heal her, then, that she may know what we intend.” “It is done.” said Carn’hell’nar with a wave of his hand. The girl was sitting up, staring avidly at them. “Charosa, sweetling, did you hear what we were saying?” “The Evening Star.” said Charosa, her voice bright and hard. “You are taking down the Mariner.” “Yes.” the Dragon smiled darkly. “Such is the proposal.” “I want him.” she said, rising to her feet. Her rags shapeshifted into flowing gossamer robes, through which her splendid body, suddenly clean, glowed fiercely. “He is mine. I want his body on mine. The only male ever to refuse my advances. I want his ship. I want his jewel. I want to shine in his place as the Evening Star. He walks so pure among us, so lofty, clinging to his elfling bird-maid and despising all others. I hate him.” “You may find that jewel to be more than you can handle.” the Dragon said with a dark smile. “It has burned even the hands of spirits…but a Star, it would melt.” “I can counterfeit it’s light. All I desire is his place in the heavens.” “So be it.” said Carn’hell’nar, an ironic smile still playing on his lips. “Let us beset the just one, for his ways are repellant to us. Let us set a snare for his feet, and a tripwire in his path. For he is a reproach to our ways, and his life is a rebuke to ours. Let us see if the Gods will defend him in distress.” Their dark voices faded. Sophia’s voice, taunt with anguish and sorrow, replaced it. She was standing in the window of a broken tower, from which all light had leaked; the crystal was dead and black, the jagged shapes like shattered glass against the deepness of blue. In her arms was Arcturus, and he was bristling with weapons, so that he seemed like some horrible titanic hedgehog of death. Outside the stars wheeled and boiled. “Arcturoha, please it you, go not! Shine not! No good can come of this.” “Some sense may yet be pierced into these darkened minds.” Arcturus said sadly. “I love thee, Sophiala, and I should long ages hence have made thee wife, but the Shadow lay on me as well and I left thee unwed. And now there is no time for marrying; below us on earth the storm breaks, and above us the Shadow is breaking into storm. Rain pours around the globe. One thing I lay upon you, for the love you bear me. My last wish, it may well be.” “You will not die!” “If I find Angar, I will die; for I must fight him, and he is too great for me. Listen to me, Sophiala. Take no weapon. Make no fight. Take no part in this dreadful madness. I no longer put my trust in the science of Angar. If the curse is indeed from the Gods, then it will work in our despite, or else the Gods will come to enforce it. Against such an hour was it imposed. If we do go to war—Arda dies.” Sophia was weeping tears of white fire. “My joyheart,” she sobbed, “I obey. I will take no part in the Rebellion of the Stars.” Arcturus kissed her passionately, and their forms merged and flowed one around another, the weapons hovering in a manlike shape beside him, awaiting their master’s attention. Back to Arheled